Cynthia Udoka Murdered By “Facebook Friends”

Earlier in July, 24 year-old Cynthia Udoka Osokogu was declared missing. The 24-year old came to Lagos on a shopping trip, as she was also a clothing retailer along with he post-graduate studies at Nassarawa State University. Recently, Cynthia was proclaimed dead.

There is a lot of speculation about what happened to Cynthia and we doubt no one will know ever know the full story except Cynthia herself.

According to reports, Cynthia left Abuja on the 22nd of July 2012 to Lagos to purchase new items for her shop. Prior to then, she’d met a few people on Facebook who she got close too and agreed to meet when she got to Lagos.

Cynthia apparently trusted these men, who picked her up from the airport and drove her to an hotel in Festac. At the hotel, they tied her up, robbed her of all the money she brought to shop for her business and strangled her to death.

They then left the hotel and quickly deleted her from their facebook friend list to remove any trace of their connection. The hotel found her body and since her ID cards and mobile phone had been stolen, they could not identify her or call friends and family. Her body was deposited in a morgue in Lagos.
All this time, her family and friends were praying for her safe return.

At some point, one of the culprits accidentally answered Cynthia’s phone and the call was traced to Festac. Therefore, her missing person’s police report was submitted to the Area E Command in Festac. This enabled her family to find her body in the morgue and also led them to the hotel.

Using CCTV from the hotel, the killers were identified. According to reports, these two young men are university students who have now confessed that they killed Cynthia and she is their sixth victim – the gang reportedly specializes in luring unsuspecting young women, robbing them of their possessions before killing them. Though there is speculation that their motive was ritualistic, it appears that it was greed and their main goal was to rob and kill. The pharmacist who supplied the drugs used on Cynthia and hotel staff have also been arrested. According to Police spokesperson Ngozi Braide, “Six people were arrested on Sunday over the incident and investigations are ongoing”.

People are advised to be careful of the connections they make on social network sites, for this are perilous times we live in.